In an effort to speed up the county flood recovery in areas such as the jail, Schoharie County Supervisors Friday agreed in a split vote to name Treasurer Bill Cherry as recovery coordinator.
Before making the move, some supervisors Friday expressed frustration with some of the recovery effort, especially when it came to the jail.
Mr. Cherry on Monday said using one or two people to coordinate flood recovery for county buildings worked for the first three to four weeks after the flood before a flood recovery committee was established. That flood team has been disbanded.
It is important to have one point person to make the day-to-day decisions, Mr. Cherry said. Right after the flood, Mr. Cherry and board clerk Karen Miller shared those duties.
Mr. Cherry said he will bring larger issues to the finance or buildings and ground committees.
One of the largest issues still to be decided, the future of the jail, will be made by the full board.
Fulton Supervisor Phil Skowfoe said many residents are frustrated with the lack of action on the jail.
He said several contractors have spoken to him and have said they will do the work if the county buys the supplies.
"The people are tired of sitting here and seeing no progress," Mr. Skowfoe said.
"We have to give our people hope, in this village, in this town, and in other towns."
Colleen Fullford, the interim director of the county's emergency management office, said the effort has been put forward but "it is a slow process."
Insurance companies, FEMA, local, state and federal regulations have to be consulted before decisions can be made, she said.
"We just can't say, 'FEMA, here's our estimate' and we'll be up and running in a week," she said. "They have to look at our estimates line-by-line."
After the vote to approve the change, supervisors met in caucus for a half-hour.
After the closed-door meeting, Blenheim Supervisor Bob Mann said flood recovery purchases would come to the finance committee and other issues would go to buildings and purchases.
More than one committee meeting a month would be held, if necessary, he said.
Mr. Cherry said the county is returning to a system that worked well after the flood.
"We'll go back to the model used successfully in the past," he said.
The flood recovery group sometimes had 25 to 30 people attending a meeting and it was difficult to get a consensus, Mr. Cherry said.
The county board and the public have to be better informed of the options, Mr. Cherry said.
One of his main thrusts will be the future of the jail.
Inmates have been housed in the Albany County jail, at an expense, since the flood.
The tough questions have to be asked about the jail and a decision has to be made, he said.
"We're going to get to the bottom of it," he said.
"No one has asked the difficult questions."
There has been a degree of uncertainty and there has been no clear choice, he said.
Someone has to come to the board and say this is the cost to rebuild the jail, this is what it will cost and this is how much FEMA will cover, Mr. Cherry said, or say that the jail cannot be rebuilt in its current location.
He expects that eventually the decision will be made to rebuild the jail in its present location, after flood mitigation measures are taken.
The jail cannot be made flood proof there but electronics and heating and ventilation units can be moved off the ground level.
The jail, he added, is "too new and too solidly built a facility to walk away from."
The recovery team scheduled a transitional meeting for April 24 to assure everyone that the process is still moving forward.